Open Source Opens Education

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Open Source Opens Education

Linux sparked an open-source movement that revolutionized the software realm. Now schools are eyeing the operating system for its cost-effectiveness.

"[We want to] encourage and support the use of Linux in schools," said Paul Nelson, the technology coordinator and computer science instructor for the Riverdale School District in Portland, Oregon, which has 25 of its 150 workstations running Linux.

For the past three years, Nelson has led the Linux in Schools Project. Once a month, the group holds a clinic in which teachers and students can learn how to use and install Linux.

Because Linux is an OS that makes its source code available free of charge to anyone who complies with the software license, it is considered very economically viable for schools, proponents say.

One of the earliest examples of open source in education was Scholar Net, a program in Mexico for elementary and middle school students. The program used Linux because they could not afford the hefty software licensing fees associated with traditional applications.

Riverdale's Nelson estimates that his district, with two schools and 450 students, saves up to $5,000 a year in licensing fees by using Linux software. In addition, the schools get free technical support from the Linux community online.

Nelson said a new high school will open in the district next year and the majority of the computers will be Linux workstations.

"For every Linux machine I see installed, I know that they're saving a few thousand dollars that can be spent on other educational needs," said Mark Lachniet, information systems director for Holt Public Schools in Michigan, another district that uses Linux.

To date, most schools use Linux on the backend, supporting their Web, email, proxy, and file servers, and for firewalls. Because Linux is so robust, it never crashes, Nelson said.

Now some schools are experimenting with using the OS as the client on individual workstations. It presents plenty of exciting opportunities for the classroom. At Yorktown High School in Arlington, Virginia, the computer science lab sports "a hodge-podge lab of all kinds of different hardware," said Jeff Elkner, the computer science teacher. "Linux is able to run on all of them."

All of the tools needed to teach computer science are on these machines, and they are free, he said.

"It's early now, but I predict that open-source software will be the standard in the school systems in the next few years," Elkner said.

Computer science teachers believe that open source encourages creativity and innovation among their students. Students can modify and improve on current software and they learn to be "empowered programmers," Elkner said. One of Elkner's students is working for a Linux startup called Helixcode.

And students are as excited about it as the teachers.

"The open-source code allows computer science teachers to get their students in the guts of the machines," said Andrew Feinberg, a junior at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland. Feinberg runs a site called High School Linux Users Group, which aims to support and encourage Linux in education.

Nevertheless, even open-source proponents agree that Linux must be more user-friendly in order to be widely used.

According to Elkner, it needs a graphical user interface for the desktop and more end-user applications. Gnome and KDE are available as graphical interfaces for the OS, but some Linux watchers are calling for a standard Linux GUI to sit atop the command line-driven operating system.

Training teachers also will take time.

"There would have to be a lot more training [for widespread adoption] and right now that doesn't exist," Elkner said. "There has to be more of a demand before that training will come into being."

And some are concerned that students may feel inclined to abuse the power of Linux.

"I see it as a very viable and interesting alternative but I think school districts need to be cautious in implementing it," said Matt McCarty, the technology coordinator for Clarkston Community Schools in Michigan.

"A student could do some real damage if they were allowed access to the core network – the mission critical applications," he said, adding that some mischief-makers may try to hack into student records.

But Linux devotees contend that open source is consistent with the goals of education.

"Education should be promoting the free exchange of ideas and sharing ideas," said David Mandel, a Linux and open-source activist who works with local user groups in the Pacific Northwest. "It's a case of demonstrating the value of peer review and the academic process of building things."